User blog:Murrayfan54/Dorothy The Dinosaur's Travelling Show! Review
As requested by one of my good friends here on the wikia, Sweetsong256, it's a review of Dorothy's Travelling Show! This video has received much recognition as it was the first Wiggles video to introduce Lachy & Emma to Wiggly Audiences. Jess requested this on my last blog post, thinking that it was bad based on the pictures and Lachy as Captain being weird. While , yes it is off-putting that he's Captain here, and now the current purple Wiggle, but that's the least of the video's problems. Granted, it's not the worst Dorothy video (I'd take this over Rockin' Christmas anytime of the year), but that's not saying much. Why is it not? Well let's find out as we jump into DTD's Travelling Show! The video starts off with John the Cook rolling a cake on a cart to the Fairy Castle, looking baffled as to where it is. He then spots the viewer and greets them. He proceeds to sing "Incy Wincy Spider". As for the songs in this video, they are mostly repeats of some of the OG classics (Fly Through the Sky, Hot Potato, etc.) as well as some of the ones that you can find on Let's Eat! (Dorothy, Pick Roses with Me, Clap your Hands with Dorothy, etc.), just filled in with new vocals. John the Cook in this is very...flamboyant, if you will. His voice gets grating at times and sometimes kinda cringing to sit through. Let me remind you that John The Cook takes up about 5-6 minutes of the beginning. (Sarcastically) Yayyyyyyyyyyy. He also describes the basic features of Dorothy as well as mixing up Dorothy the Dinosaur's name with Derek, David, etc. If I wanted to see somebody describe the basic features of Dorothy, I'd just watch the 1998 prologue to "Dorothy the Dinosaur". He then needs help looking for Fairy Castle. It's right behind you, dingus. He then calls for the fairies. Enter Fairy Clare, played by Clare Field, and Fairy Larissa, played by... Emma Watkins? Don't get me wrong, she does a great job with what she needs to do as a fairy, but was Larissa unavailable when this video was in production? I need to know. They sing "Everyone Can be a Fairy", saying that if you Flap your arms straight up and down, Then turn around and around, you can be a fairy. Guys, it takes a little more than that to meet the qualifications. What about believing in magic or yourself in general? You never mentioned that in the song. As well as being modest and NOT a show-off. This song already has inaccuracies. That's sad. Enter Dorothy the Dinosaur, our main star, 9 1/2 minutes into the story. What kind of video brings in their main character at the near-quarter mark of the running time? That just goes to show that whoever wrote this didn't give much thought or effort. Wags, Henry and Captain Feathersword join in the "fun" as well. Lachy does a great job of being what the Captain is supposed to be: a happy-go-lucky sea captain, but compared to someone as funny and clever as Paul Paddick, it just feels that he didn't put much effort into his performance. Dorothy greets the viewers and Captain greets the...cake? They sing "Wags loves to Shake Shake". Then Wags tries to eat the cake, but John won't let him, as the roses used in it are rare ones from Japan, and it would take a miracle to replace them. They go back and forth with the cake and eventually John says that he can't have any. So, the Captain starts crying and he then proceeds to fake a heart attack. He face plants into the cake and Wags licks off the icing. I guess the moral here is that you can't have your cake and eat it too? He then blames the cake getting ruined on Wags. What?! While Wags isn't all innocent here either, he didn't cry over not getting cake and try to fake die in order to have some. In a much better video "Whoo Hoo! Wiggly Gremlins!", Wags was blamed on Network Wiggles getting messed up by the Captain, when it was his own fault that things quickly spiraled out of control by putting himself in charge. Why it works there and why it doesn't work here is that the video was a heck of a lot funnier than this and Captain there actually put effort into making a half-baked lie, rather than making it seem all the more forced. Anyways, they obviously see through his lie and John says that it took him three months to prepare the cake and find the roses. I Goggled and I Binged and I saw that it would normally take 3 days, at the absolute most, to bake a three layer cake. Unless this cake is big (which it's not), it really shouldn't take that much longer to bake something as simple as a cake. John the Cook then face plants into the cake and Dorothy decides to cheer everyone up with "The Shimmy Shake!". Yeah, spending three months of baking a cake which was gone in under a minute and singing a song can totally fix this situation! Try doing something like this in real life and see how far you get. The Captain is still sad, even though you were smiling in the song, so they decide to sing yet another song "I'm A Little Teapot". You know that line from Wiggle Bay when the boat drifts out to sea, "When Things Go Wrong, Just Sing a Song"? Well, it still doesn't help here. They sing "Clap Your Hands With Dorothy". Aside from the different video, it's ripped straight from "Let's Eat!", just with Lachy's vocals layered over the original. They decide to go to Japan to get the rose for the cake. The Captain decides to sail to Japan to find it first, but we don't actually see him sail there. This is a way for him to right his wrong. "Fly Through The Sky" is sung in what is probably the most enjoyable part of the video. It brings me back to watching "Top Of The Tots" as a kid and it really puts a smile on my face. Then again, it still doesn't make up for the rest of it. During the song we meet "Able Seaman Sonny" played by Luke Field. He's Captain's ... actually, we don't know what he actually does for him. He's just there. Henry finds John the Cook sad and miserable. John the Cook then mistakes Dorothy for "David" and "Derek", yet again. They have done this running gag 3 times over and it's still not funny. It's just annoying and cringing. Henry mentions some octopus babble and sings "Henry's Song". Dorothy, Captain and the fairies come back from Japan wearing kimonos. John drags out the song and they tell him to stop. He then says in what is the most forced way possible "Awkward!". Still. Not. Funny. At All. They found the rose he was looking for. They sing "Haru Ga Kita (Spring Has Come)". It is actually a nice moment in a video that is void of them. He then gets the rose and, rather than put it on the cake where it's supposed to be, he shows it off to Dorothy and the fairies. Not my fault if you manage to screw up the rose. The cake is now back in it's regular form, only for Captain to mess it up, YET AGAIN. Why??????????????? You finally get it back to normal, and you still manage to screw up your one job. Wags comes and cleans the cream off of Captain's face, while singing "Brown Dog in the Ring". A small bit of foreshadowing happens as Captain and Larissa dance hand by hand. They decide to have a dress-up party. Why they didn't sing "Dressing Up" here is beyond me. Golden opportunity: Lost,yet again. Wags decides to be a pirate for the party, singing "Nicky Nacky Nocky Noo". At least it's not ripped straight from another video this time. {Award yourself a Cookie if you got that reference} The Fairies, John and Dorothy ate the cake, making the captain feel sad, again. But they cheer him up by singing "Quack Quack". Why did they change the backing track for this video? I don't get it. They sing "Follow the Leader" and then "We're All Friends". They surprise Captain and Wags with Hot Potatoes. You know what that means. They say goodbye with a dance of "The Fairy Dance". So ends the video, and this review. My final thoughts: I only have one question: Why?????????? Why was Paul Paddick not in this video? Why did Henry not got the screen time he needs? Why was the actual Larissa not in this video? Why was the Captain obsessed with a freaking cake? Why, Why, Why??????????????????????????!?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hated John the Cook in this video, he was so annoying, and I barely made it through this without wanting to destroy my monitor. You want a John the Cook in this special, fine, but couldn't you get John Martin or John W. Field to play him. They would've been more soothing on the ears. The songs were okay. Lachy as Captain Feathersword does a better job than Brad Carroll, but that's like saying a piece of poop with one sprinkle on top is better than a plain old piece of poop. Either way, they're both things you don't want to be around. I give this video a 1.5 out of 5 stars, about a half step up from Rockin' Christmas. If you're looking for a Dorothy video to entertain your children, choose Beach Party, Memory Book, Meets Santa Claus, anything other than this. It's not worth your time, certainly not worth your money, it's not worth your anything. As the Nostalgia Critic would say, "I review it so don't have to!". Take care and Keep on Wiggling! -Fataday Category:Blog posts